


Survival [Customs]

by ZedElla (Leviarty)



Series: Survival + Snippets [7]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Accidental Marriage, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4571547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leviarty/pseuds/ZedElla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Rodney and John aren’t actually married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survival [Customs]

Carson didn’t actually know when they started wearing the rings – it wasn’t as though he paid an extraordinary amount of attention to their hands, after all – but one day, there they are. Matching silver bands, simple but elegant. He suspected they were crafted by the Gavarans, an ally of Atlantis who dealt heavily in well made jewelry (Rodney would never wear a ring if he wasn’t certain whether it would cause an allergic reaction).

He didn’t ask when the decision had been made, didn’t comment on the rings. If they’d wanted a big deal made, they would have mentioned it themselves.

They weren’t technically married – not according to Earth customs, nor according to Atlantis. Sheppard had always viewed marriage as an archaic practice, one far too ingrained with the idea of “one man and one woman” and that two people didn’t need a piece of paper to tell them what they already knew. Sheppard had never said this, not in so many words, but he had implied it after several accidental marriages of SG team members. (Carson also suspected that there may have been a problem with the religious aspects, but had no evidence to support it).

While they weren’t married on Atlantis, at least a dozen societies did consider them to be married – he couldn’t remember the exact number, because there had simply been too many, but he had heard it over the briefing table enough times. So many times, in fact, that it almost could have been considered routine; after a while they’d even managed to get through those briefings without blushing.

That had been before – before Earth fell, before Nemora, before they stopped tiptoeing around their feelings.

Carson didn’t know exactly when that had happened either, simply knew that it had. It was easy to miss, and not much had really changed; they still hung out in the lab, still played video games together, still ate lunch with Ronon and Teyla. But somewhere along the way, something had changed. Subtle looks, here and there, the occasional touch (chaste, never overt, but too intimate to ignored), and finally the joint relocation to the south pier.

He thought they were idiots, for waiting as long as they had, but he was glad they’d finally made it.

**Author's Note:**

> I've got two more parts to this series on the way (at least two, more may come later *shrug*), but it'll probably be a few days before either is finished.


End file.
